Slashdot Mirror
Wheat Field Wi-Fi
An anonymous reader writes "The world's largest wireless network is not the proposed network in Philadelphia. It's in Walla Wall, Washington. Built by the Columbia Rural Electric Association, the network covers an area larger than the state Rhode Island. The network is already operational in the rural Washington State farming community of Walla Walla."
Wireless is probably the only connection available in these areas; Dialup degrades as your distance increases from your core phone system, and dialup speeds in the middle of a corn field are probably not too hot (14.4k anyone?). The only other suggestion for high speed internet for these people would be satelite (read: expensive), or dedicated cable of any kind (read: even more expensive).
I would be more than willing to pay 40$ a month for 256kbps in the middle of nowhere, instead of paying 30$ a month for 14.4kbps AOL or 4-500$ a month for a dedicated T1 or something like that.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
In rural areas, T1's can still run up to $1000/mo, and that's just for the fiber, that doesn't include traffic.
Especially when you realize that the telco has to lay the T1 directly to you for you to get it, and that you'll be paying for that too.
Wouldn't have made more sense to implement a Wi-Max (802.16) based network than installing all the Wi-Fi access points?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Umm maybe because we shouldn't discriminate against the rural communities just because they don't live in a big city.
Personally I would like to move to a rural community of less than 10,000, but there is no technology in most of those places - and that's how I make my living.
Find coupons in Greeley
Rural areas tend to have a lot cheaper cost of living. Rural broadband can make it possible for IT jobs that might otherwise go to India/China to instead move to rural USA.
The cost of living, no matter how low in parts of the US, will always be MUCH higher than that of India. There is no way that we can compete with that outsourcing wave w/o government intervention. To say that this is a viable option is just silly. Such a move might cut the costs of IT jobs in half, or so. Moving them to India cuts them by a factor of 10.
Also, where are they supposed to live in rural America? Just because there are not a lot of houses does not mean the land isnt being used. Are they just supposed to crash with farmers??